Indigenous Studies
In the decades since the passing of the Pamajewon ruling in Canada and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in the United States, gaming has come to play a crucial role in how Indigenous peoples are represented and read by both Indians and non-Indians alike. This collection presents a transnational examination of North American gaming and considers the role Indigenous artists and scholars play in producing depictions of Indigenous gambling. In an effort to offer a more complete and nuanced picture of Indigenous gaming in terms of sign and strategy than currently exists in academia or the general public, Gambling on Authenticity crosses both disciplinary and geographic boundaries. The case studies presented offer a historically and politically nuanced analysis of gaming that collectively creates an interdisciplinary reading of gaming informed by both the social sciences and the humanities. A great tool for the classroom, Gambling on Authenticity works to illuminate the not-so-new Indian being formed in the public's consciousness by and through gaming.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians has been a part of Chicago since its founding. In very public expressions of indigeneity, they have refused to hide in plain sight or assimilate. Instead, throughout the city's history, the Pokagon Potawatomi Indians have openly and aggressively expressed their refusal to be marginalized or forgotten--and in doing so, they have contributed to the fabric and history of the city.
Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago examines the ways some Pokagon Potawatomi tribal members have maintained a distinct Native identity, their rejection of assimilation into the mainstream, and their desire for inclusion in the larger contemporary society without forfeiting their "Indianness." Mindful that contact is never a one-way street, Low also examines the ways in which experiences in Chicago have influenced the Pokagon Potawatomi. Imprints continues the recent scholarship on the urban Indian experience before as well as after World War II.
Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago examines the ways some Pokagon Potawatomi tribal members have maintained a distinct Native identity, their rejection of assimilation into the mainstream, and their desire for inclusion in the larger contemporary society without forfeiting their "Indianness." Mindful that contact is never a one-way street, Low also examines the ways in which experiences in Chicago have influenced the Pokagon Potawatomi. Imprints continues the recent scholarship on the urban Indian experience before as well as after World War II.
According to traditional Cheyenne belief, shields are living, spirit-filled beings, radiating supernatural power from the Supreme Being for protection and blessing. Shields stand at the nexus of several dimensions of Cheyenne culture, including spirituality, warfare, and artistic expression.
From 1902 to 1906, fifty Cheyenne elders spoke with famed ethnologist James Mooney, sharing with him their interpretations of shield and tipi heraldry. Mooney's handwritten field notes of these conversations are the single best source of information on Plains Native shields and tipi art available and are a source of inestimable value today for both the Cheyennes and for scholars.
In 1955, with the blessing and permission of the Keepers of the Two Great Covenants and the Chiefs and Headmen of the Northern and Southern Cheyenne People, Father Peter J. Powell began a five-decade effort to help preserve the religion, culture, and history of the Cheyenne People for the generations ahead. His transcriptions and annotations of Mooney's notes on Cheyenne heraldry is the culmination of these efforts. This two-volume set features nearly 150 color illustrations as well as more than 50 black and white photographs.
The Light People is a multi-genre novel that includes a series of nested stories about a tribal community in Northern Minnesota. Major themes include Oskinaway's search for his parents and the legal wrangling over the possession of a leg that has been removed from a tribal elder. Each story is linked to previous and successive stories to form a discourse on identity and cultural appropriation, all told with humor and wisdom.
Taking inspiration from traditional Anishinabe stories and drawing from his own family's storytelling tradition, Gordon Henry, Jr., has woven a tapestry of interlocking narratives in The Light People, a novel of surpassing emotional strength. His characters tell of their experiences, dreams, and visions in a multitude of literary styles and genres. Poetry, drama, legal testimony, letters, and essays combine with more conventional narrative techniques to create a multifaceted, deeply rooted, and vibrant portrait of the author's own tribal culture. Keenly aware of Eurocentric views of that culture, Henry offers a "corrective history" where humor and wisdom transcend the political.
In the contemporary Minnesota village of Four Bears, on the mythical Fineday Reservation, a young Chippewa boy named Oskinaway is trying to learn the whereabouts of his parents. His grandparents turn for help to a tribal elder, one of the light people, Jake Seed. Seed's assistant, a magician who performs at children's birthday parties, tells Oskinaway's family his story, which gives way to the stories of those he encounters. Narratives unfold into earlier narratives, spinning back in time and encompassing the intertwined lives of the Fineday Chippewas, eventually revealing the place of Oskinaway and his parents in a complex web of human relationships.
This well-researched book provides details of the varied steps that certain groups of Native Americans have used to express their dance ideas - from skips, jumps, and hop steps, to an Indian form of the pas de bourrée. Similarities to Oriental dances, classical ballet, Spanish and Russian variants, and steps in other dance forms are also considered. Examples are given of Indian dance music, words, and descriptive sounds that accompany this music, and the choreography of certain typical Indian dances of the Southwest. Authentic illustrations by a Native American artist depict dancers, while outline figures characterize steps and postures. An inportant addition to the libraries of anthropologists and students of Native American culture, this classic will be invaluable to ethnomusicologists and choreographers.
How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming "Water is life"
In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.
Rights in Rebellion examines the global discourse of human rights and its influence on the local culture, identity, and forms of resistance. Through a multi-sited ethnography of various groups in the indigenous communities of Chiapas, Mexico--from paramilitaries to a Zapatista community, an indigenous human rights organization, and the Zapatista Good Governance Councils--the book explores how different groups actively engage with the discourse of rights, adapting it to their own individual subjectivities and goals, and develop new forms of resistance to the neoliberal model and its particular configurations of power. Far from being a traditional community study, this book instead follows the discourse of human rights and indigenous rights through their various manifestations. The author offers a compelling argument for the importance of a critical engagement between the anthropologist and her "subjects," passionately making the case for activist research and demonstrating how such an engagement will fortify and enliven academic research.
Dispatches of radical political engagement from people taking a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline
It is prophecy. A Black Snake will spread itself across the land, bringing destruction while uniting Indigenous nations. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the Black Snake, crossing the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The oil pipeline united communities along its path--from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois--and galvanized a twenty-first-century Indigenous resistance movement marching under the banner Mni Wiconi--Water Is Life! Standing Rock youth issued a call, and millions around the world and thousands of Water Protectors from more than three hundred Native nations answered. Amid the movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. A nation was reborn with renewed power to protect the environment and support Indigenous grassroots education and organizing. This book assembles the multitude of voices of writers, thinkers, artists, and activists from that movement.
Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors, including leaders of the Standing Rock movement, reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement's significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as "lessons learned" but as essential guideposts for current and future activism.
Contributors: Dave Archambault II, Natalie Avalos, Vanessa Bowen, Alleen Brown, Kevin Bruyneel, Tomoki Mari Birkett, Troy Cochrane, Michelle L. Cook, Deborah Cowen, Andrew Curley, Martin Danyluk, Jaskiran Dhillon, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Liz Ellis, Nick Estes, Marcella Gilbert, Sandy Grande, Craig Howe, Elise Hunchuck, Michelle Latimer, Layli Long Soldier, David Uahikeaikalei'ohu Maile, Jason Mancini, Sarah Sunshine Manning, Katie Mazer, Teresa Montoya, Chris Newell, The NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective, Jeffrey Ostler, Will Parrish, Shiri Pasternak, endawnis Spears, Alice Speri, Anne Spice, Kim TallBear, Mark L. Tilsen, Edward Valandra, Joel Waters, Tyler Young.
Sweet Medicine is the most comprehensive record ever made of the ceremonies of the Northern Cheyennes. Volume One recounts tribal history against the background of the two great spiritual tragedies in Cheyenne life, the loss of the Sacred Arrows and the desecration of the Sacred Buffalo Hat. Volume Two records the contemporary Sacred Arrow and Sun Dance ceremonies in their entirety. Father Peter J. Powell, who has observed and participated in the rites many times, was given special permission by the Keepers of the Two Great Covenants, the Chiefs, the Headmen, and the Priests to record them in words and photographs.